The present invention relates to a process for the degradation of hydroxystyrene polymers.
Generally, synthetic high molecular substances are hardly decomposed by the action of microorganisms and are not susceptible of decay even when buried in soil. This nature would be a great merit of structures for which decay is undesirable. On the other hand, industrial materials not decomposable by the action of microorganisms are out of the natural recurring cycle and thus are treated compulsorily by the combustion method when thrown away as waste materials. When synthetic high molecular substances are treated by the combustion method, they are not effectively utilized and converted into substantially valueless substances, e.g. CO.sub.2 and H.sub.2 O. Further, the treatment of such high molecular substances by combustion is attended by such a disadvantage that the combustion furnace used is susceptible of serious damage so that a specially devised furnace is required.
An essential condition for building synthetic high molecular substances, as in the case of wood, in the natural recurring cycle is that they are attacked and decomposed by microorganisms. Of the synthetic high molecular substances, polyvinyl alcohol is known to be decomposed by microorganisms. However, polyvinyl alcohol is only useful for limited purposes because of its water-soluble property and thus finds no use as ordinary plastic materials.
As a result of extensive researches on the decomposing action of various microorganisms on synthetic high molecular substances utilizable as ordinary plastic materials, it has now been found that hydroxystyrene polymers having a recurring unit similar to hydroxyphenylpropane contained as a structual unit of lignin in wood are attacked and decomposed by bacteria of Moraxella genus or fungi of Penicillium genus isolated from soil to afford industrially utilizable oxygen-containing low molecular compounds. The present invention has been accomplished on the basis of the above finding.